Leave it in Las Vegas

FOXCameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher's drunken spree leads to a quickie wedding in "What Happens in Vegas, a contrived comedy that turns winners into losers.

What Happens in Vegas (PG-13) Fox (99 min.) Directed by Tom Vaughan. With Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher. Now playing in New Jersey. ONE AND A HALF STARS
Joy's just been dumped. Jack's just been fired. So when their respective best friends tell them now is the time for a blow-out in Vegas, they agree. And when they accidentally meet there, they decide to go the limit, gambling their heads off, downing endless bottles of Moet and finally, impulsively, marrying each other.

Which suddenly, the next hungover morning, doesn't seem like such a great idea.

Making things difficult is that they've won $3 million on the slots -- which neither is willing to give up, or even very eager to split. Making things impossible is the divorce-court judge they see back in New York who, rather than giving them their quick annulment, orders them to live together and try to make it work.

Let the nasty games begin.

It's called "What Happens in Vegas," but it should have been called "What Happens in Hollywood" as it pretty much defines contrived studio comedy. There's nothing remotely real about the movie, from Cameron Diaz's uptight Wall Street trader to Ashton Kutcher's 30-going-on-3 frat boy. Even in the wacky world of screwball farce, the idea of Dennis Miller's judge sentencing them to "six months of hard marriage" is merely absurd.

The only good joke in the whole thing is that author Dana Fox, who also wrote "The Wedding Date" and rewrote "27 Dresses," has been named one of Variety's Top Ten Screenwriters to Watch. Make that Watch Out For. (Sample comic dialogue: "Do you think I went overboard?" "No, I think it's just the right amount of board.")

Diaz does her patented wide-grinned, adorable ditz act, but it doesn't fit her buttoned-down character (but then, neither does that description necessarily fit an adrenaline-pumped trader). Kutcher does his hunky dude shtick and tries painfully hard to find the humor. As his best friend, an angry lawyer nicknamed "Hater," Rob Corddry is, as usual, insufferable. (He's picked up Larry Miller's comic mantle as Least Welcome Supporting Player.)

The one small bright spot in the cast is Lake Bell, who plays Diaz's bitter friend, Tipper. Bell is all sharp profile and hard elbows, and she gives the movie the kind of strangely sexy hostility Catherine Keener used to specialize in. It may only be the typical smart-and-bitchy best friend part, but Bell perks thing up whenever she appears. Considering she already survived "Over her Dead Body," I suspect she'll be around for awhile.

The movie, though, as engineered by British director Tom Vaughan, just goes from mild set-up to even milder payoff. For once, this is a comedy that probably could have used a little more raunch. (A PG-13 movie about Vegas? Really?) The only surprise in the entire enterprise is that the ending manages to include two cliches -- the current let's-all-go-to-court device, and the time-honored let-me-run-after-you-now-that-I-know-how-much-you-mean-to-me scene. All the climax is missing is the applauding crowd of strangers.